


Oni (鬼)

by Oni (Inde)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied Sexual Content, Minor Character Death, POV First Person, Pre-Overwatch, Requested, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9621557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inde/pseuds/Oni
Summary: Hanzo believes tearing down the Shimada Clan will help prove to his brother that he regrets what they made him do. Concealing his identity with his family's revered Oni mask, loosing himself in violence and guilt, he finds that murdering does not leave him unnerved— but,shedoes.





	1. Sake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> * The entire story is in Hanzo's POV.

01/酒

 

I had to write all this down in case there is nothing left of me at the end. I had to for the times I wake up and need convincing. I am capable of these nightmares, this slow suffocation of the mind. It started with you, with what I saw in myself as I watched you die.

Genji.

I immediately want to tear this page out for writing your name on it. Resisting, I curl into myself like I am burning up at the hearth. There are so many blank pages after this and even more false starts behind it. I am convinced this is my last chance at being honest and I can't risk the words reduced into ashes because I fought to hold onto them.

There is no time left to be indecisive and the pen has a mind of its own.

Genji. I am sorry.

Genji. I had to.

Genji. I’m alone now.

The wood grain along the table runs away from me in disgust. I try to run from me too but I have nowhere to go. I have this journal, I have an empty glass of sake, I have a useless bartender staring at the back of my head while he tries to work out the best way to tell me he has cut off. He wonders why I am not yet draped over myself, why I have not become aggressive and loud. He will not serve me anymore because he assumes the next drink will push me there.

It matters not what he thinks of me, from the backlit counter where the bottles are on display like expensive crystal. Alcohol softens reality which is only a problem if you have a reality left to disfigure. Whatever mine has become withstands any additional beating.

I approach the bar, the curator of comfort separated by a lacquered wood counter, to pay him with a large bill. It is all I have on me now, in my preparation for a life in hiding, but it is substantially more than what I have managed to drink. His judgments about me twist away on recognition. Money does this and I know this well, growing up watching what people will sacrifice for it. He slid the banknote towards himself without saying anything about it. I prefer it that way as well.

I turn to leave but he calls me back with a clearing of his throat. He tells me that I forgot something. He sets a small cylindrical cup on the counter and pours me another drink from a matching ceramic flask. It appears that we have come to an understanding, briefly. If I still had it in me to be thankful, I might have expressed that to him. Instead, I raise the cup to eye level and nod.

乾杯。

I think about the carp breeding in the water where the rice grew to make the drink. It is petty and cynical because I do not deserve simplicity, but I envy them. It goes down smoothly and I return the cup.

I will not be coming back in in fear of being recognized, but I would if that was not a concern. There are many izakaya here, the streets full of their red lanterns, but this one will remain in my mind after I leave. This is where I started the journal and beyond that, where I found proof that not everyone out there thinks solely of themselves— another trait I have seen all my life.

I may have removed myself from the formalities of the world, alienated by disgrace, but I can still recognize a polite gesture when I see it. Especially when it is misspent.

I consider going back inside once I step out into the alley but I only have few hours to burn before the deal. If I want to do it right, I should be sober.


	2. Payment

02/代金

 

I still feel the childproofing sake has put on me, the reminder that I can no longer be trusted with my own thoughts. I feel how it has softened the edge of the knife, the blade lodged in my chest for so long that I have had to accept it as a part of me. The sake shows me where the pain lives, it allows isolation even if it is only for a short time. Instead of grief setting over me like the fractal process of frost, I function.

But I am made aware that a soft blade is no less lethal when I go back to the hotel room and see my belongings mixed with yours. I have been telling myself from the very start that looking after your things will not bring you back and that I will only weigh myself down by dragging your ghost around with me.

I tell myself this knowing that I cannot leave you behind again.

I move. I stumble forward.

I am tired eyes, red behind twitching cheekbones. I am Father’s face and Mother’s irises. She looks at me through the mirror and I become as helpless as a child once again. She knows what I have done from beyond the glass. I want to be mad for being left alone but I look to her in detached wonder while my bones lock with tension. She observes me with all the carved patience of a kami statue before reducing the world with a knowing blink.

Her disappointment in me does not stick.

She leaves me having seen the blade I carry, assuring me that I am still her son. I taste pity.

I pull my hair up and tie it. Unceremonious as it is, standing drunk in the bathroom, I shear and shave. I mention this casually as in the moment, with the tremendous throb of alcohol, my thoughts had not left my family.

I untie, adjust, and observe the damage by tipping my chin at different angles. I consider the shame of hesitation had I been sober, if I would I have felt ready to let go had it not been for the sake in me. In the same thought, I know it matters little because the vanity lights assure me that there is no going back.

I secure it, again, knotted in the likeness of a samurai and become like the illustrations in my Father’s invaluable books I had loved as a child. I see then there is a section of hair I managed to cut too short. It hangs in my face, limply. I know I deserved this for how much I drank at the izakaya.

For as different as I look now, I have planned on wearing the mask. I know it will be impractical going forward but the ones I intend on meeting later know my features too well. I will think about what comes after the mask once I need to.

I will be going up north to Hokkaido once tonight is over. I consider it as quarantine, a place that I am without relatives or connections. I will return in a few weeks once the dust settles here. It is not my intention to leave for good.

Even still, I scold myself for considering the future, for assuming that I will survive the next few hours and then— just as boldly, the following days and weeks. I scold myself while considering it is only because I am not completely lucid do these thoughts well up in me— formless optimism.

I have had this room in my name for a day shy of two weeks, leaving only for sake and the occasional meal. The Elders have been accommodating my absences only because they have to— only because I have extensively proved to them to what length I would go for the clan. 

They never saw your death as a loss.

I start and finish packing. The mask I will wear watches me move about as it sits in a pile of clothes— things I used to wear, things I am unsure if I will wear now that I am no longer that same person. I did not allow it to follow me because I wanted to. I had to. I know you hated it, the unhinged jaw and wide-eye stare, but they have all earned the demon of this mask. I intend on making that clear.

I change out of what I had been wearing and dress simply. All dark clothes and a lightweight jacket with room enough to conceal Oni. I shuffle through my belongings, taking inventory for the last time, before zipping all the bags and leaving them by the door. I set this journal on top of the pile knowing I have already placed more importance in it than I should. I consider offering it to the sea once I make it to the coast— if I make it to the coast. 

I leave without the comfort of my bow. I am completely unarmed.

I have to trust my plan.

I reach the warehouse along the industrial outskirt of the city, empty save for the maze of goods stored away for future shipment. I quickly locate the crates I need, knowing exactly what to look for. I shift them to a small clearing and find a crowbar to hold onto, staving off whatever sudden vulnerability has gripped me.

I run through each step that will happen next until I am convinced it will come to me automatically. Reflexively. Prophetically. It is then when I remove the mask from my coat and slip it over my face.

 

I hear them. I know there will only be a handful of them inside, that there will be others outside confirming I am here alone. I know the weapons they carry and their heightened suspition. I know everything about them before they see me.

One addresses me with the false name I have given them. I feel the mask tip towards the voice but I am somehow farther away and the motion is not my own. We stand in silence after, I map the bodies in the room.

Genji, I have been planning to kill them— all of them.

The one who spoke before does so again, telling me to show him I can be trusted. I pat myself down voluntarily, opening my jacket and showing that there is nothing on me. It is only then after I have satisfied the request that he returns the gesture. His company relinquishes their concealed weapons to a spot in the floor next to me that I gesture to with the crowbar. The ones outside will still have theirs but I will handle that when I am faced with it.

They tell me the “Young Master” is not here yet and that we must wait for him. I do not say anything back, only inhale the deep, earthy scent of the mask that surrounds my face. They have been ordered to follow precise instructions but will become impatient waiting. I count on this.

They are unaware that the Master is already here, that he stands before them with horns and fangs in the grip of thirteen days of anticipation.

The one who has done all the speaking so far is transformed by authority that his Master would have never allowed him to speak with without severe repercussion; I am ordered to act.

Finally.

I plunge the crowbar into the seam of the crate, hoisting the lid up and free. The wood cracks and groans. No one moves, except the one who spoke. He approaches the box to recognize the legitimacy of the deal. I see satisfaction in his eyes, even if he tries to deny it. They are all creatures of habit.

Fatal curiosity takes hold of him. He requests to see one up close.

My body bent into the crate and I pick up one with each hand. They are awkward and unfamiliar. I do not favor the complexity of firearms. 

From where he stands with the crate between us, my limbs— and by extension the nose of each gun— formally meet. It registers only after I have done this on the man’s face that he will not survive the next few seconds. His life becomes mine the moment I press one to the slant of his forehead, the other over his heart.

I feel him pulsing, frantically; he reeks of fear and death. It is a smell that permeates the simple barrier the mask has built around me. It is pitiful.

Both of my hands act at the same time.

His chest appears to expand once it accepts the bullet. His head, however, at proximity, is far more fragile and makes a mess over the concrete beneath him— for an impressive distance behind where he had stood, too.

The others are not quick enough and panic uselessly. I have a lifetime of training behind me that keeps me calm and focused, regardless of the unfamiliarity of the weapons I hold. I likely miss a few shots, but the ones I land are fatal and disgusting. I should feel something in each bullet but I am only made to recall why I cannot. I made you into a victim, Genji— then myself. Listening to the patriarchs, trying to live up to our Father's reputation. I know that in my eventual death will I still be focused on yours.

I wonder if you are watching.

The sudden offensive echoing has alerted the attention of others outside. They become a disorganized swirl of movement, tripping over themselves and throwing the heavy door open to find there are no survivors.

I am the only one alive and standing; an emotionless deity, impervious to attack. Oni judges them without a word, his face becoming mine. They try firing but there is only two of them and I am able to take them out before they can aim. I had graciously allowed their eyes to linger just long enough for them to process the image.

With everyone dead, splattered around the room like a grotesque art project, I drop the guns and I bring myself back, kneeling on the concrete.

I breathe. Rusted, corrosive blood in my nose and mouth. There is peace in annihilation.

I will destroy this empire, as it rots from the inside out. I will not allow them to survive for what they have done to us. 

Even if it is not enough, even if you can never forgive me, I will show you, _brother_ , how sorry I am.

 

I do not know how much time passes but I feel that I am not alone again. I see that the second half of my plan in motion as others fill the warehouse. I had invited a rival clan to cover my tracks.

They see me first as my new undercut. They do not recognize Hanzo— the Young Master. I do not recognize Hanzo either, having surrendered my myself to Oni.

The Shimada clan will believe our rivals have taken us out, that I have died in a deal gone wrong.

I know they will not mourn for me either.

My new company laughs at the horror, prodding bodies and turning over corpses in sick disbelief. I do not feel like laughing and I do not rise to greet them.

They drop a pouch into my lap. I salute their gesture with two fingers parallel to my nose, recognition that the contract has been fulfilled. They tell me they should throw in extra for the performance, that I am a _crazy motherfucker_ and they would love to continue doing business with me.

I nod without breathing a single word and leave; it is their mess to take care of and I am in desperate need of sake.


	3. She

03/彼女

 

I wanted the coast to change me. But, nothing changes you like—

 

I spent months in the Shiretoko-hanto Peninsula living in my mind, trying to sort these thoughts with the scent of conifers and broadleafs clinging to my skin. The air was mineral and the nights were quiet.

After 24 hours of traveling, I had reached Utoro as the day began rolling into night. The sun had calcined and fire overlaid the sky. The sea had joined in, horizon lost or devoured by frothing and snickering water, equally bloody from the blanket of orange light. Eagles skimmed and broke the surface, crying out, ignoring me. I was nothing to them.

I understood then why Shiretoko was derived from a word meaning the end of the earth.

I imagined that was what the end of all things would look like. Annihilated by incomprehensible wonder of the physical world, smothered by beauty we do not deserve. To my offense I learned, it does not care what you have or have not done, it only continues to be. And as I stood in that spot, the end of the earth, the exact point where the world was perforated, I felt myself contain a paroxysm of disgust. It was a reflex I learnt; I see something beautiful and feel myself turn away.

I forced myself then to stand, anchored to the brine and grit.

I planned to get rid of  _this_  then, while I was there. I had taken  _this_  with me to the edge of the world. I was prepared to watch the pages dissolve, to surrender this piece of my mind to the uneven shoreline. But once I was there, it had been impossible to let go. Nature surged towards me to shield me from my past but I did not, and still do not, deserve a second chance. 

Why does everything seek to fix me?

I replaced the money from the pouch the rival clan had given me with this journal. Since I could not find it in me to destroy it, proven by a humiliating score of attempts doomed to fail, I simply refused to write. I thought that if I could deny its existence then I could deny the truths I gave to it.

But, Genji, I do not regret killing them.

I remember the feeling and it is far from the same horror. Being surrounded by wilderness as I was, the smell of soil constant, I lived in recollection of the antiqued, earthy balm of the mask. They deserved the Oni, the only demon I can tolerate.

One night I had been sitting out in the grass, the land jutting out to short cliffs and rolling into hills behind me, foxes chatting and stars blinking lazily above. Fall was setting in and the ground beneath me felt colder and firmer than when I had first arrived. I was watching the waves rolling, nursing the near-constant ache about my head, when a sika deer and two of her fawns curiously approached me.

I felt a strange tenderness towards them and in turn, restlessness stirring in myself. The two fawns clubbed me with an intense sadness and I knew then that it was time. They urged me with their marble, unblinking eyes. Go.

I left the next morning. 

After traveling for a day, I arrived with the dawn and was repulsed to find that Hanamura had not changed. Anger sometimes overtakes the place sadness has claimed in me but I felt both then.

I remembered you here, I was expecting to see you.

I set up a place to stay, renting an apartment under a false name. I chose a modest studio that looks out at Shimada Castle as it scores the landscape like a giant middle finger. Settling my things, having returning with significantly less that I had originally taken with me, I itched to return to my plan.

I contacted the only person who knew I was alive. Trusting him made me weary but it was essential. I kept the conversation brief even though he chipped away at my patience with questions about bears and mountains. (I saw both but it had not been important.) I asked him to meet me outside the city, if he knew a place that was safe for us to talk in person.

Once I found the place he had suggested, I nearly turned around and left.

He brought someone with him. 

Idiot. Fucking idiot.

He was not expecting my reaction— or my appearance. I had grown a bit of facial hair since leaving and he must have still remembered me as the clean-shaven, long-haired “Young Master.” This is what faking your own death does, you become unrecognizable and new.

Somehow he convinced me to stay and listen. She, the person who had been sitting next to him, watched. She said nothing, but turned me inside out with her eyes.

There was a lot to explain and because of her he talked in code. The Shimada Clan was reduced to the likeness of a typical company by the way he handled the information. She must have assumed we were dealing in legitimate business from his testimony, his creative choice of words and phrases. Our natural language of assassination and illegal substance was not one she had been familiar with. I had decided, by the same token, she had never seen someone die.

We spoke for five solid minutes in this way before his cellphone began ringing and the conversation we had maintained was broken by his obnoxious ringtone. He gave me a panicked look before taking it, the call being short and strained. She looked at me while he was on the phone and I pretended not to notice.

After he hung up, he informed me that they were calling a meeting and he had to go. He assured me he would come back after, as he slipped his tailored jacket back on and assumed their appearance. I think I protested. I meant to but perhaps I was unable to. I knew it had been too risky for him to come back afterward. Again, I was dismayed by his actions but I had no other contacts and relied on him.

He left me with her. I could have gone as well but I noticed that I had felt so hollow and I almost felt fuller just by sitting next to someone. That is what the weight of another human being does, it points out everything you ignore in yourself.

I said to her: Your  _friend_  is dense.

And she, verbatim, as if it had been the most obvious thing to everyone in the room, told me there were  _bigger problems_  in the world.

That was when I decided it would be worth it to stay.

I remembered the polite gesture of the bartender and tried to extend the same courtesy. We graduated into the awareness that I was about to order a drink from the way I looked towards the bar and then back. Her perception made it easy on me, being that Hokkaido had turned me quiet and I was not able to ask.

She told me she would have what I was having. We ordered sake and they served it hot.

We had not spoken about anything in specific, too much was sensitive and my tongue was prone to lying, but I know what I said carried the awkward mutation of bereavement. Even so, she was able to combat my pessimism and keep the conversation moving forward. Everything she did had the appearance of calculation, even the way that she observed me. She was outside of herself too, watching our interaction play out just as I was.

Again, I could have left— I did not want to. Whatever part of me that had become conditioned to recoil was absent.

Inside our third drink, she called me world-weary. She had noticed the weight on my shoulders, saying it was in the way that I sat. And that was all— she recognized it, harmlessly, and left it alone.  _You’re not okay but that’s okay._  I had refused to believe it until then, it caught me off guard and I hid what emotion that leaked out of me in swallowing the remainder of my drink.

I tried looking for faults in how she sat but she was too clever to give me a tell.

I should not look for the worst in people anyway— not after what I have done.

I had an idea of who she was by how she drank, what she said before her lips touched the glass, and how she would set it down but hold onto it with both hands. I could not help it. Something about her had made peace with life’s tendencies, its grand unfairness. She recognized world-weary because she had been there too.

I had severed myself from people for a reason and there I was breaking my own contract. I tried to focus on the sake but she had been more interesting without trying to compete for my attention.

I had to wonder, rudely, what she was doing with that guy.

I had to wonder, all the same, what I had been doing too before silently pleading that she had been flushed in the face because of the alcohol and no other reason. I did not— still do not— deserve for her to look at me the way that she had. I found no restraint in the empty glass and looked for it in the next.

One of the last questions she had for me was why I had it in for the company. I know my face contorted before I could recall what she had meant, what we had lead her to beleive.

I was supposed to be a businessmen. 

Alcohol made me clumsy; not only had it softened the blades and edges, it made me want to clarify. Fortunately, for all my poor decisions that lead me to that moment, I still knew better than to admit to anything. I said to her I had my reasons and kept it private. I knew it was a poor response and that she could have pulled more out of me but she was quiet.

Knowing that he was not about to return anytime soon, I paid for us and we wandered out into the street.

We both stalled against skirls of wind that forced us to stand closer. I had wondered what she was thinking until she clarified she and him were not together in the way that I had assumed they were. She had been looking at me with so much intention because she wanted me to understand that, and it was only then when we were about to part ways was she able to say so.

Even though I should _not_ have— the action defying who and what I had become— I put my hand to her waist and felt her tremble.


	4. Morning

04/朝

 

I keep circling back to a conversation we would have had like I am groping around in the dark for a light switch. I look to for you for answers that are already there, that I am ignoring in fear of my own dilapidated judgment. You are something that I have come to expect my mind to return to, done by habit, even though remembering you at length is is cause for considerable, intricate pain.

You would sit across the table from me and listen. You would be half-interested at best but humoring me anyway until I would mention that I met a girl. That would be when your ears would perk up and you would interrupt with some inappropriate question.

_Did I kiss her?_

Yes. Not the point.

_Did I like it?_

Yes. Also, besides the point.

And I can imagine how you would fold your arms up into your chest like I was the one being difficult. You would stare down my face and find the truth somehow. Simple and direct. I was still human as much as I had tried carry out in ignorance of that. I was therefore achingly still occasionally ruled by my organs— my heart and downward, due to the shutdown of my brain. I consider talking and writing to you proof of that. You died weeks ago.  

My time in isolation produced this weakness and wanting her had become unavoidable. Again, I imagine this conversation with you because you would have picked up on this immediately.

You would continue to challenge me while knowing this, sneering and shaking your head, doing all you could not to laugh at me.

_Then what’s the point?_

Her attention is wasted on me.

You would tell me that if I was not careful, ignoring my basic needs being reckless, I would be alone my whole life. You would tell me the solution was to ask myself: _What would Genji do?_ You, referring to yourself in the third-person while I would scold you for always focused on the wrong things.

Genji, I have no right to happiness.

But you would crane your head towards me, not before an obvious roll of your eyes, a scoff too maybe. You would tell me, matter-of-fact voice, something to the effect of how I had my whole life to plan and get revenge and be bitter, but _a very small window of time to get laid_.

Your words not mine. 

I would cringe. Underneath everything that was said, I had been searching for your encouragement and looking for your clarity.

_Hanzo. Stop frowning, it’s depressing. Try being happy. That’d be novel._

You would know that I needed direction. Nights at the end of the earth spent listening to the constellations, celestial longitude and latitude reflected in the restless sea. The water looked as deep as the sky. I looked then too.

I look now over the low table, confirming that you had never been sitting across from me and I am reminded sharply of the last time I saw you. Your face was distorted by so much blood that it was easier to keep my eyes shut— my face turned away under the urge to look down. I could not watch your final moments, only feel the last of your breaths from the injuries I gave you.

But even with my eyes closed, even as I denied the moment was happening, I could see you in Mother’s arms.

You were so small— grasping at the air, cooing at me.

It was my job to protect you.

Mine.

I shut my eyes again in the present and re-opened them. The journal takes your place but is no replacement. I feel the edge of the table in my grip as if the wood is soft enough for my hands to gouge. My limbs shake with frustration that move in the likeness of a tide before pulling away. I allow my palms to slip uselessly to my lap.

I hate that you are now only parts of the person you were. I hate that now that you are gone that I look to consult you, versus before when I believed that I knew everything because I was older. At the same token, I thought I knew what was best for what remained of the Shimada clan when Father left to join Mother.

Retrospect makes words clumsy and unbearable, guilt gnaws at me and still—

I kissed her, but that was my second mistake. My first was bringing her here. I want to blame the sake but I chose to drink that much in the first place and even then I can recall wanting to. As we walked back into Hanamura, I realized how badly the sky gets drowned by the city. I missed Utoro, childishly and feverishly, even though there is no benefit to starlight. I have to scold myself for being sentimental.

I remember pulling the key from my back pocket to unlock the door and the first thing we were faced with was my stack of bags from earlier. She asked if I was planning on going somewhere. I had to clarify that I was only in town for business.  _Business._ That lie again. I had to search for it, too. Apparently, that is the role I am left to assume: a businessman, not a killer.

What is another mask to someone me?

Because the studio was mostly bare— this table, the futon, a small kitchenette— the only real thing to comment on was the view, which was inescapable. From the height of my building, Hanamura was uselessly lit up with fairy lights. She said, pulled towards the windows, that the castle was beautiful. I closed my eyes and let it hit me, knowing it would sting, bracing for the sting, but feeling the sting rip through me like an arrow and far worse than I could imagine.

It was devastating in its own way.

Rectifying my sudden nausea, I looked down to my chest. The single imperative, the soft blade lodged in me still, insulted me with movement. Against my expanding lungs, the tip scraped over my heart. I knew my jaw had tensed, my whole body followed.

That castle, for all I care, can  _damn well_  burn. Everyone in it too. Maybe then I would look out towards it with admiration.

Her intrigue for the view was thankfully short lived. She decided instead to sit at the end of my mattress, her legs crossed, back straight. The room fell unbearably quiet, threads of blood in me twitched.

Genji, I think you know what she wanted. 

She looked to me, assuming I would join her, but I felt grossly unprepared and it must have showed on my face. She lept back up and apologized immediately. The little voice in my head cheered for ruining the moment, insisting I did not deserve comfort and yes, this is exactly what I got for trying.

I had told her that I drank too much, which I might have, but was far from the full extent of it. As embarrassed as she was, making herself vulnerable by coming here under the wrong impression—rather, the right impression, I gain nothing by lying to myself— she told me she understood.

That was when I kissed her. 

I cannot remember the floor beneath my feet as I moved over to her, I only remember knowing that she stood still. Her hands came up around my shoulders, I could feel her grip onto me as if I had not stood close enough.

_You’re not okay and that’s okay. You don’t have to be._

And I know that it would seem that more happened after that— again, I gain nothing by lying to myself— but we were driven apart by a phone call from my contact, the idiot that brought her with him in the first place.

He was looking for me, having returned to the bar to find us missing. I gave him my address and only after I did, did I beat myself up for not meeting him in public and compromising my safe place. And only after  _that_  did I have to do the same for bringing her here too. 

He assured me he would come alone and quickly. He had news.

After I hung up, she decided she would leave. I did not want her to, but I had nothing else to offer her. She clarified, as she pulled her shoes back on, that she was not with him but that would not stop him from acting strange about finding her there.

I let her go and felt the headache find me, worsened by the sake. I was betrayed by my drink, not realizing how strong of a grip it had on me until I had to combat the wooden floors without toppling over.

I began sorting my things to keep busy, to keep from thinking too hard about her and what we might have done.

I unpacked my bow, first, with it being strategically concealed; I had done enough traveling to learn that obviously stowed weapons tend to make the public uneasy. Unpacking clothes next, I carefully unwrapped the Oni from a doubled-up nest of seigaiha fabric. Everything still smelled densely like Hokkaido which made notice how much I missed it. 

I consider returning.

Drunk me talks about the future all the time, it seems. Drunk me is loaded with delusions.

When he finally knocked at the door, I was selfishly hoping for her again. He told me that in two days time, one of our clan's beloved Elders would be going to a ryokan in Hakone. His youngest daughter was getting re-married and he would be gone for the weekend.

I remembered his face. I remembered once I returned to him, my ōdachi sheathed in your blood, that he patted my shoulders and told me I did the right thing. 

Oni stirred, my blood blackened on command. His horns pierced my forehead. I felt the handle of the ōdachi in my hand and cast it aside.

He looked at me strangely but dismissed it.

I paid him for his information. He declined first but accepted when he glanced at how much I was prepared to give. Leftover still from the rival clan's payment, but to him— a month of rent, bills, hostess clubs. Whatever. My gesture was not out of generosity, like the bartender's offering, rather necessity. If I lost him, I would loose my intel, the plan, and my means of apology. 

I needed him, Oni needed him. We paid, lavishly.

He accepted and left but not before saying:  _nice doing business with you_. I felt myself groan once the door closed, the excess of alcohol heightening my revolt. I mean it when I say I feel like I am trapped in a bad movie script, sometimes. The dialogue is enough to make you cringe, enough to make you thankful for the moments when no one says anything.

With him gone and nothing better to do, I looked towards the mask. The last tenant had left a few stray nails stuck in the wall, I used one next to the door to hang him up. I told him to be patient before luciditiy warned me it was dangerous to assign an inanimate object a personality. But I was somehow already past a warning and had decided that he  _was_  a part of me, an extension of my mind. Not only did Oni have his own thoughts, he wanted revenge and I, recognizing our parallels, wanted to serve.

I slept after that. Immediately. No slow crucifixion of her or you to keep me up into the night. Again, the excess of alcohol had made it possible. I would dream of the sika deer and eagles until the sun rose, burning my skin like acid at 6 AM. I ran to the toilet and puked my guts out. 

Good morning.


	5. Fool

05/馬鹿

 

I did a foolish thing.

I do not mean the obvious— decisions I have made prior to that would be considered so. I mean, again, I have done a  _very_  foolish thing.

I saw her again. Which, is not in itself the foolish thing, although it directly lead to it.

I woke, pulled out of sleep by the focused sunlight, and was immediately ill. As if I had not been miserable enough, remembering that I was no longer up north but back in Hanamura with Shimada Castle callously staring me down. There are no blinds in the studio I am renting and from the futon am I granted a full view of the world outside by the depth of the glass. There is no buffer between me and _it_ so I curse _it_ for making me sick as the bile crawled up my throat...

After, and with the pitiable bite of what lingered on my tongue (still human, my body reminds me as I recoil by taste and sight, is that grounds for me to rejoice?) I was forced to clean myself up or risk being sick again. I washed the last of the coast off of me— not that there was any physical evidence, but my intuition made claims. The last of the salted and mineral air, the elevation and ridges; I wore it plainly on my skin. I stood under the shower-head until I thought that I too, along with it, would seep down the drain. That somehow made me feel at ease, thinking I could. But I have too much ahead of me to fall into these thoughts. False comforts, distractions. There is too much that needs to be done still. Even if my eyes feel heavy-lidded,  _are_  heavy-lidded and semi-soulless says my reflection, I will go forward until there is nothing of me left.

I pull my damp hair back. My fingers run from my scalp through the slick ends until it all slips out of my hands and falls around my face. The need for cover, the illusion that I am someone else, has devotedly maintained the undercut. The sides are always kept shaved while the rest is long but despite that, workable. I leave it untied to dry and keep the elastic around my wrist for later.

It is a strange phenomena that I should keep ties with me at all times— they are in every pocket I reach into, even the ones I have no recollection of putting them in.

I wonder what you would think of it, lopsided as it is with the short section that has still not grown enough to stay out of my face. I wonder but not without having to punish myself for doing so in the first place. Curiosity is not gentle. It has teeth.

It is not yet 7 in the morning then, in the fogged bathroom mirror, the air still wet, and I feel myself choking. Am I going to be sick again? No. Not that simple. The feeling is complicated and one hand goes to my side as if to stint, the other keeps me steady, gripping onto the porcelain sink. My mouth drops open as if I am deprived of oxygen. I heave, I hear the sounds that leave me. The humidity becomes hands around my throat. The feeling liquifies my knees and I have to use both hands to keep standing or else fall to a heap on the tile beneath me.

I fight to breathe— something that should be involuntary switches into something I have to think about, regulate, control. 

It goes away, eventually yes, but I am left gasping and shuddering. I tell myself that next time I will be far better prepared but _this_  time was  _next time_  and it was no different from  _the time before that_. Tenderly, I reduce what happened as a disconnection. Clinically, it is something else. I understand there is medication that could help me control it all, but that would require visiting doctors— that would require _existing_.

I do not.

With a towel hanging around the back of my neck, I observe the intensity in my eyes. I think of Mother again and her judgment. I think about where I would be had she still been alive— but for what reason? To feel the pathetic snap of my bones breaking?

Genji, I am powerless to how I feel.

Powerless is not an excuse, but that is what I am. Gripped by a fever of emotion and thought. I recognize it. I give myself into the word. I think, my thoughts in your voice—  _Alright Hanzo, you are powerless, now what?_  

I figure out my next steps under Oni’s unblinking stare. Forward has become voluntary, I must fight for it as I fought for breath.

I dress, simply, still learning to exist in this appearance and without the branding of the clan. Today, like most days, a white cotton t-shirt and black jeans, being that I ditched most of my old clothes and these are plain enough that I avoid drawing too much attention.

And I know I said "ditched" but I have to take the word back. "Ditched" implies I might have left them somewhere. 

I burned them. 

Knotted them together without the abrasion of restraint, then, dug a pit in the highlands and lined it with stones. The fire billowed and smoke rushed over me, I felt it twisting my lungs and coughed violently for the rest of the day. I wanted to feel cleansed, instead, I felt a dryness in my mouth and a raw throat.

I began researching the ryokan in Hakone that the elder is going to. I idly flicked through photos and reviews, with disinterest, as I familiarized myself with the setting. The closeups of food irritatingly had an adverse effect on me. Hunger. It had been too long since I had eaten a proper meal.

My phone began ringing, breaking my concentration as I was trying my luck in booking a room for the next day. A number I could not place appeared on the screen. I answered with caution. 

It was her.

Somewhere in my drunken state I had given her my number. I would have thanked past me if it had not been an inherently stupid thing to do. So much for a life in hiding if I was giving out all the information I needed to keep secret.

This is still not the foolish action I described. That will come.

She had said that she wanted to make sure I was alive. She woke up feeling sick, grossly hung-over, and wondered if I had too. I spared her the details, on my hands and knees over the toilet, and told her I felt better now. She, without prompt, asked if I felt better because she called.

I know you would have teased me to overhear that, and even more so for what my face did in response. But I cannot help it.

It is a good thing she called.

It is a terrible thing she called.

She asked me if she could come over later, adding in slyly, on the condition that felt better. Something told me she had already decided if she would or not but this was what I got for not joining her on the mattress when I should have. She teases me as softly as she can and I am helpless to allow it.

Oni rumbled in me, his eyes widening mine. I am still trying to figure out what he makes of her. I know she likes me so by extension, he must know too. 

Curiosity is not gentle. Never is. It has teeth.

I allow for the possibility that she might show up but not without thinking that I am being selfish. There is no sake in me, only unfiltered tap water and a stomach that is both sick and hungry. There is no softening of the blade, there are sharp edges and all of them are unforgiving. 

I am not idle in the meantime as I have much to consider. By this time tomorrow, I will be between here and Hakone. I go to my bags and due to all of my drifting recently, I am efficient at packing. I know the process well and I begin.

I go to my bow as I feel like I hear it whispering. On paper, I must appear mad as everything has begun to talk to me now. I must allow these things to have voices. As long as I can recognize that, I assume it is fine.

I know I will take it with me the moment I secure my hand around it. I have commit too much of my life to kyūjutsu, near dreadful perfection, that it feels strange to shy away once again. _Mastery of the bow is the sign of a professional warrior._  Father had told me when my arms shook and I missed target after target. _Pull the string. Everything is in the string, young one. Breathe and draw._

In Utoro, I bought arrows fletched with sea eagle fathers. Those are the same birds that scrape the water at the end of the earth. Finely crafted arrows are an indulgence I have not yet escaped. My mind forgives the apparent symbolism but frowns on sentimentally.

_Funny..._

I ran a finger over the ends, allowing myself to become mesmerized.

She knocked. Hardly any time had passed.

Oni laughed, deep and gnarled, at my surprise.

I greet her and see immediately that she had brought food with her. I am struck with relief and appreciation before I remember that I do not deserve her here and the hunger I feel is no longer the pain that I am focused on.

We eat at the table. I expect silence because I am still rough in conversation, but she speaks for me. She is careful with her topics, still calculated. The way the sun finds her from the uncovered windows is astonishing. Of course, I should not look but it is rude to ignore her when she is talking. I admire the sight of her, helplessly.

Something tells me she knows how I look at her, worse still, that she looks at me in this way as well.

And if her bringing food had not earned enough appreciation from me, she shows me after we finish eating that she has something else and holds a finger up, apropos of nothing. She reaches into the bag she brought with her.

Sake.

Expensive too— not a guess, a fact.

 _I hope you like it_ , she had said, while calling it a welcome back to Hanamura gift from my confidant.

I could detect the lie in her voice. The thought was hers alone, not his.

Her gesture is wasted on me.

I am not a person. I look like a person but no human can look into the eyes of their kin and drive a sword though their chest.

I could not speak. I nodded.

She suggests we drink, toasting the beginning of the end of the company that _fired me_.

Oni howled with laughter at my role.

A businessman. (Not a killer.)

We are not bound to the clock, not deterred that we have just finished breakfast and that we are both nursing hangovers. I break out glasses. She pours for me and I pour for her. We make this poor decision but we still follow etiquette. She had been sitting straight across from me, the table is small and square so we are close enough even at opposite sides. I saw her smile. I saw her knowing that I cannot resist the gesture. I saw her understanding, without me having to say so. I felt the anxiety leave me, gradually, and a welcome softness rush to greet me in its place. 

By noon, there was only a shameful amount left in the bottle.

This still is not the foolish thing. It may seem so but I promise it has not occurred yet.

I remembered then that I had not made the reservations. It struck me that as I meant to, I had stopped because she called.

I take the phone out from my back pocket and with an embarrassing amount of strain to type with accuracy, I begin the process of booking a room once more. She only has to ask with mild interest before I tell her precicely what I am doing— only stripped of its graphic nature. I explain that I am planning a trip to Hakone and will be leaving tomorrow.

She asked me then _why_  which was reasonable for my strange behavior— having pulled out my phone as we were talking about something unrelated— but I could not for the life of me come up with justification. Nothing. My head pounded. She looked at me funny, as if communicating with her eyes,  _you must have a reason._

I think I end up saying “because I have never been” and that was all it took. She was satisfied and even went so far as to tell me that she had never been either.

I should have kept my mouth shut.

 **This**  is where the foolish thing happened.

“Come with me, then.” 

My exact words, for whatever reason. I knew I should not have said it but I had not, for one moment, believed that she would agree. 

She did. 

We are leaving tomorrow morning.

Together.

Genji, what would you do if you were me?


	6. Hakone

06/箱根

 

Hakone was beautiful.

I say this without knowing how I was able to endure it. I say this after surviving the beauty of the end the world with its skies of fire and rolling waves.

Mount Fuji, a snow-capped giant in the distance, watched us move about as we arrived with our bags slung over our shoulders, stepping through the leaves that had just begun to fall. We walked for at least a half an hour, from the station to the inn, deciding against taking a bus or taxi because we had the time and neither of us felt the need to rush. Autumn was ready, showing in the air and in the trees. Everything that was once green had begun to burst into into purples and golds and reds. Everything had accepted change; Hakone closed its eyes before summer, forgotten spring before it. Looked towards winter, peacefully gazed at death.

I quieted the part in me that hurt. I wanted to turn away but I was enclosed in it, nature spiked with aesthetic wonder once again. If I had been alone, I would have surely felt panic wash over me. I would have ached but even that was absent then and left me with miraculous awe that I could still press forward. I tried then, to anchor myself in the weight of my concealed bow and the moment that I came for, but found myself straying uselessly. Distracted.

Her jacket was open, but in contrast, she was bundled in a thin fawn-coloured scarf piled high around her neck, chin, and ears. A closed-lipped smile above that, peaking over. The expression pulled at me, the part of my mind that still yearns for simplicity. I had not felt weary with her at my side. I felt awake, I felt each breath. I had been, if anything, pleasantly hyperaware of everything; her blinking, my blinking, the direction of the wind as it lazily fanned the surrounding foliage.

She had been telling me about her last travels, Numbani apparently, when a maple leaf tumbled through the air and pressed itself to her cheek. She laughed, musical, and I felt something in me freeze. I wondered then how I had done so much moving around in silence before, relying only on myself, when she could have been with me.

I recalled past-me, nursing wounds with alcohol, looking at something I was not allowed to have with a desperate, messy, dizzying rendition of lust that I had long since forgotten. Past-me, foolish then, but properly exalted now for his impulse– all because of the sound her laugh.

I am weak, still. I know this. I am wrong to want her.

When we eventually arrived, I remembered the last time I had went to a ryokan– but only in pieces. I remembered what it had felt like then and how it would be different this time. I remembered, how even before then, Mother and Father leaving us in the care of our many “uncles” to go away to them together. I understand now why they preferred leaving Hanamura when they could. I know now the things they had seen, how it left them empty. I know empty. They would leave, empty, but come home refreshed. Restored. Never entirely, but enough to see more.

Then, in the same sudden fondness, a splitting ache— I thought of how Mother had spent her last days, how she went away with Father to a ryokan under the assumption that deathbed phenomena wouldn’t find her there because it was not a sterile hospital.

I thought of how she had become so frail but remained fiercely optimistic, she poured so much of herself into her belief that toji would be better for her than any treatments or procedures Father’s doctors had prescribed. I thought of how she called me to assure me the alkalescent springs were gifts from the gods and she was certain she was healing, that she and Father would come home to us soon. She praised me then, for always looking after you in her absence. She had said that she loved us more than life itself.

I thought of how Father had returned late in the evening after that phone call. I thought of how he had roused us from sleep; how he had woke me up first and I followed him to your room. How he sat us both down at either side of him, your head finding his side like a baby sparrow in its nest, not truly out of sleep, while I sat rigid. I knew something was wrong but I did not dare speaking in fear of interrupting.

I can still hear Father’s voice as if he has just said it: ”Her pain is gone now.”

But the pain continued in us. I know you felt it. It lived on the moment he said that.

It darkened in us. Deepened.

I felt that pain then, standing in-front of the ryokan, disfigured from being shoved down for so long. All of this pain, simple and evident, all as she stood next to me unaffected. Her calm, in my peripheral, reminded me to breathe. So, I breathed, doubtful that it would pass, but sure enough, the pain rose and receded an I was spared.

She was taken back at how lavish the inn was when we finally stepped inside. Even the recessed stone floor of the genkan was quietly imposing. I had known and expected it, seen enough pictures to feel like I was stepping into a dream, but that was the very moment of her first impression and it was clear on her face what she had felt about it.

We were greeted, given slippers to wear, and lead to a reception desk. Someone offered to help me with my bag, I insisted that it was unnecessary.

“Are you here for the wedding?” The receptionist asked me gingerly. I told myself she had asked because she had already known that I was carrying a weapon and what I planned to do, as impossible as it was. The universe teased me in this way, darkly assuring me murder was transparent and written all over my brow.

I denied I knew anything about it. I could even fake a small look of surprise. Oni was amused at my acting, watching me intently and tapping his nails rhythmically, expectantly. I felt him shudder with excitement, the flare of violence alive in my nerves. I desired blood then, I left my mind for a moment.

Genji, I know how it sounds but I am only reporting what I felt. I could lie and say I felt nothing, but I felt too much.

She brought me back to awareness with her fascination. I cannot remember what she said exactly but it was the sound she made that caught me off guard. Like a breathless exhale. Her wants so plainly and all in a sigh! She longed to know love.

Oni was quiet. He had no input, only noticed— only shifted.

We were lead to our room, facilities pointed out along the way. Given our key cards, one each. It had not been until we were in the room, alone, did she turn quiet on me; as if we were both pausing between lines and she forgot what was next. She suddenly appeared to have remembered what to say and mentioned our room was impressive, a code name for expensive. Again, money is not an issue for me but yes, it had cost an exorbitant amount for the two night’s stay.

When she said it though, I placed my bag down and gave the whole room another look through her eyes. Of course it was impressive; it was spacious and open, high-ceilinged, light pouring in. She too, was cause for silent appreciation, especially how she looked to me. At me. That was gratitude enough.

Dinner would be served in the room at 7 and there had still been several hours until then. I knew how I wanted to pass time. I knew still, ridiculed by what my body had decided on, by what began to throb even with my brain’s protest and repulsion. She wanted me. And _she wanted me to want her_.

I did. But God. I am so weak.

Whatever could have happened then did not occur. She told me she was going to go to the baths, knowing what we might have done if we looked for ways to fill the silence. I felt relief, in part, but burgeoning disappointment. I know how starved I am for touch, even now. I could feel the hitch of breath in my throat as she turned away from me and I had to allow myself the reminder that I did not deserve to have her with me in the first place.

She changed to a yukata, as provided by the ryokan, a sleek grey-black with a white obi. She had pulled her hair up loosely, without a mirror, exposing her neck. I stirred, yes, just by the exposed skin of her nape as if it were more than it was. She gave my look a small look of her own before assuring me she would not be late for dinner and left. I watched her until she closed the door behind her. All the obligation went up in smoke. Even if I had said something, even if she had stayed…

I too changed into the yukata once I had the room to myself. The baths were out of the question; my tattoos aren’t exactly discrete and I expected that I would be recognized instantly. I wore it to blend in. I dressed to experienced just how large the ryokan was, walking through every corridor I could. I passed many people but averted every stare that I felt press over me. I did not, do not, look like the “Young Master” anymore and I don't expect anyone would be able to recognize me in passing but I cannot risk it.

But— I felt something, then. As inconspicuously as I could, I looked ahead, down the stretch of hallway before me that I had yet to pass. The Elder’s daughter, with her husband to-be, were being shown to their room, were close enough for me to see the details on their faces.

Of course I had remembered her, Genji. I remembered you had played your part in her first marriage dissolving.

I remember too much, too often.

I retreated, without considering if I looked suspicious, disappearing down the hallway I had just emerged from. Something in me fell apart and I felt my chest tighten. I tried breathing deeply. In. Out. In. Out. No effect. I had to find sanctuary. Hyperventilation is bad enough. In public, it’s somehow worse.

“Sir?”

One of the staff had appeared out of nowhere, seemingly, directly at my side. I almost felt that he looked at me and recognized me but it was quickly shadowed by concern. I assured myself with whatever reason would come to me then that it was just my head messing with me. I was deprived of oxygen enough as it was, from my harsh, unsteady breathing. I know better than to trust my own thoughts, at any rate.

He asked if I was alright. I swallowed as much as I could and stiffly told him that I needed a place to sit down. He lead me to a storage closet nearby and I sat among brooms with my knees drawn up to my chest. I found the floor beneath me and the dim of the space helped. He stood with the door half propped open, as if on the lookout. I was relieved he had not watched me. I know how pathetic I must have looked.

He extended a hand to help me up once I had fully calmed. I did not want any more help, as pride dictated, but I reached out knowing that I would be light-headed from all the gasping. My sleeve slipped down my arm as I reached up to his extended hand. I know he saw a part of my tattoo, even as I casually re-covered it.

He told me something strange, “nice to meet you” or something to that effect, before we parted ways. I did not like the feeling he gave me but gave it no thought then. People are always looking at me with remote expressions, saying things I cannot understand.

I went back to the room and I realized there was still quite a bit of time until she said she would return. I decided to make use of the private open bath on the balcony, behind a sliding glass door. The water bent the air around it with gentle steam that rose off the surface. 

I stripped, wrapped a towel loosely around my hips, and stepped outside. The air was crisp but I was hardly effected. I sat in the tub, the water went up to my chest. I faced the grounds, we had only been two stories up so I was still granted some of the world beneath me. I watched, waited to be inspired or destroyed by the need to recoil, still numbed from the hysterical corner my mind had shrugged itself into.

I do not want the moral high ground. It means nothing to me now.

So, what do I want? Her. Next to me. On me.

I closed my eyes, I push out the thoughts.

I heard movement from behind me, after I had been alone for some time, and realized that she had come back early. She headed straight towards me, out though the sliding glass door. I felt my arms go limp and the float to the surface of the water but then rushed back down to cover myself.

She did not explain why she had come back and she did not have to.

“Lonely?” Yes.

“Want company?” Yes.

She motioned for me to turn around, I changed how I had been sitting, careful that my hips would stay under the cover of water to risk exposing myself. I heard her disrobe, the flutter of fabric. I heard her move closer. I saw a flash of her thigh, her beautiful skin. I felt the water rise. She sat next to me. Our shoulders almost touched. We sat, still enough that there were no ripples on the surface, not that either of us had looked down.

“Thank you for inviting me.” She remembered her line again after our pause.

I got away from myself just long enough to do another foolish thing. I pressed a palm to the side of her face, I pulled her close to me. We kissed. Again. But she was smart enough to pull away, eventually, and showed me how flushed she had become. She smiled into the back of her hand and looked at me through eyelashes.

She moved, then, so that she was sitting across from me. The water reaching up her chest, just high enough. Our knees touched.

We talked while the leaves swayed and magpies sang.

Life will forever be complicated.

Our dinner arrived. I got out of the water first, hoisting the towel up over my body. She closed her eyes for my privacy. I turned away and retrieved a towel for her then reciprocated the gesture.

We sat across from each other and ate. Mesmerized, I watched a droplette of water, or sweat, roll down her temple, down her neck, down the front of her chest. I dropped a piece of wagyu beef from between my chopsticks, concentrating on that and not the food I had between my utensils. She laughed.

Wanting is nothing short of misery, I decided.

The sky darkened, to its full potential, revealing a vault of stars that twinkled into existence. Waxing crescent, the omnipotence of the fractional moon, peered down at us with severed curiosity. We stayed up talking that night drinking fine gyokuro tea. Buttery and dark, high-grade, shaded for 7 weeks after it was plucked and fit for a true connoisseur. Nothing less. Slow sips between serious conversation, different from our sake-fueled discussions.

She told me things about her that I would never write on paper. I tried to offer the same, pieces of myself as honesty provoked, but there is too much of me that I know I need to keep secret.

We eventually found sleep. Talking had brought us close. She had rolled onto her side, facing me, her hands folded under her head. I, around her, sheltering her. She slept soundly and I wondered long into the night how much time will I have with her before something drives us apart. Something will, after all. It must.

We woke. The day of the wedding upon us. From our balcony, you could see down into the manicured yard. Chairs were being set up, divided by a walk-way for the bride and groom,  along the gentle slope of the river. Event planning was in full-swing and it was hardly 9 AM. My neurotic studying of the floor plan was useless, they would hold the ceremony outside.

Breakfast was served in our room, once again, as per following the request I had included with the reservation. The family would be arriving, the building would be choked full of dangerous people who believed I was dead. I could not let them see me, let alone in with her, as we ate tsukemono and eggs.

She finished eating and told me she would go to the baths again. I wondered if I had made it obvious that I was preoccupied with thoughts from my hash silence.

As soon as she left, Oni took over me. He prepared my bow, he uncovered the mask. He doted over the arrows, he twitched with excitement. He widened my eyes, fixing iron cleats over the shoes I had brought with me.

My confidant had told me the ceremony was scheduled for noon. We, Oni and I, knew it was fast approaching. We knew there would only be a small window of time, confirmed by the surge of bodies.

Equipped as I was, I went to the balcony. The cleats over the deck were noisy. I stepped lightly, crept to the edge of the building, collected myself on the railing, jumped.

Yes, jumped.

I leapt down, tucked into myself, rolled, stopped. Couched. I felt the breeze across the front of the mask, my nose tickled. Lilies. Strongly. The florists were setting up massive arrangements, the loose petals almost looked like snow.

I checked to make sure no one had seen, then I was mobile again and moved towards the shelter of trees. I was born to do this, after all, and the reassurance thumps inside each heartbeat. I hardly have to think, to concentrate. My body tells me to run, I run. Oni tells me to run, I run faster.

I glided through the air, my feet scratching the cold soil and kicking up dirt. I stopped shortly after clearing a line, then curved back around. The distance was necessary; I could not have shot from my balcony since the ceremony was facing the river and the trajectory of the arrow would have given me away. I had to reposition, I wanted his heart. I had to shoot him from out here.

I climbed up the trunk of a tree; I crouched once again amidst a cloud of orange leaves, one hand steading myself against the thick branch, the other holding my bow. I was completely hidden in the leaves. I watched the people mass along the grounds. I saw the arrangements of flowers and moss covering stone statues. It all made my head throb. From behind the mask my mouth fell open; the noises I had made were almost lewd, anticipation toying with me. Oni’s impatience had my heart quick and fast. My pulse shuttered in my neck, twitching. I fell into and out of the moment before loosing myself. Oni found small erotisim imageing the looks of horror from the daughter and the clan members, my arrow perfectly though his chest and evil heart. The excitement only expanded once he fell into my sights.

I am ashamed to admit now, I was not thinking of you then. I was too caught up in thoughts of revenge.

When the ceremony started, I drew an arrow from my quiver. Loosely loaded my bow, readied myself. Waited, as patiently as I could. There was going to be the right moment. I would know when I saw it.

The bride and the groom approached the priest, whose back was to me. I watched the swollen pride on the Elder's face. I itched to take him then but I savored it.

I was prepared for all manner of outcomes, but not for what happened next—

The priest turned around, only for a moment, but long enough that I recognized his face. He was dressed as staff the day before, the one who offered me the storage room so I could calm myself down. He was the one who saw my tattoo, the one who left me feeling unsettled.

I lowered my bow.

The priest turned back around to the couple. His hands laterally went into the opposite sleeves, a smooth rehearsed movement, before he drew guns that had been concealed inside and pulled them back while uncrossing his arms.

結婚おめでとう。末永くお幸せに。

Shot her, shot him— happy union in death. Hakone expanded to accept their lives, leaves around me tumbling through the subdued afternoon breeze. Both staggered in opposite directions then fell, bleeding over white lilies. There was screaming, ladies shrieking, guns drawn, general confusion.

The priest was shot, seconds after. Multiple people, multiple wounds. The pathetic pulp of his body fell back. He died with a smile.

Oni begged me to pull the string as all this had happened; he was restless, the whole scene had not changed his desire. I knew, without failure for thought-process, not hampered at all by the slaughter, that it would be more cruel to let him become familiar with loss— to allow him to know it so well that it would destroy him. Then, when he can stand life no more, will I take his life.

I looked at the elder, the only one who hadn’t moved, who is paralyzed by what had happened, who looks as if he wants the ground to split from under him and swallow him up. I let him live and jump down from the branch.

From the cover of trees, I ran back. I climbed, with the aid of my cleats, up the balcony and over the railing. I immediatly shed all parts of my disguise and tossed them haphazardly into my bag. Just as I had been zipping the canvas back together, she came back.

She wore her distress better than the yukata, hanging loosely around her shaking body from dressing in a hurry. Her eyes were glassy with tears, she was warm and still wet from the bath. She had not personally known them, no, but her idea of love and romance was squashed and for that, she was in shock.

I had nothing to offer her besides myself. She sobbed into my chest while I held her, comforted her. One hand over the back of her head, one around her waist.

Her world did not process what happened because it simply _could not happen_. People were never shot down in broad daylight, especially not when they were getting married.

I smiled because I had not been the one to do it. I smiled because I could hold her without being the one that had reduced her to this, because I almost had been.

I looked out over the balcony from where I stood with her pinned to my chest, crying softer. I had left the sliding door open in my haste and in filtered the noise of the panicked guests and family. Nature, spiked with atrocities and destruction, burned all around us.

Hakone was beautiful.


	7. Tattoo

07/ 入れ墨

 

We left immediately after.

After she had calmed enough to change, not concerned if I was looking or not. I moved to the balcony for her sake as soon as I saw her pulling at the obi, her bare shoulder exposed. I was excited enough already with Hakone burning around us, the one lady outside who had not been able to hold back her hysterical sobs.

She was upset, it would have been wrong. For a surplus of reasons on top of that, wrong still.

After she had finished dressing, she came out to my side and put a hand on my shoulder, her way of telling me that she was finished. I refused to turn around until she had.

I rushed back in to put on my own day clothes, zipping a hooded sweater on top with the rationale that it would shield me from anyone who might have recognized me once we left the room. My judgment from the state of things outside was to prepare for certain anarchy all throughout the corridors (imagined, along with the uproar, the Elder’s gaunt face as he tried to process loss, Oni himself kicking down a door with his being spattered in matrimonial blood like the lilies had been, other gruesome, tiresome things that I expect I will see in my dreams later, etc.)

These are necessary precautions now; immaterial details like fake names and hooded sweaters will end up preserving me. I would rather prevent an incident then cause one.

Oni had been silent with anger as we shuffled and moved; for me not making the kill, for the patience I could still summon up. Oni is impatient, demands action. To him I am stalling, to him I am fragile because all of my actions are still persuaded by my emotions. I pray to become detached in the end— but I am far from that, so until then, I can do nothing aside from admitting that I am powerless to how I feel.

I gathered the last of my things and packed them on top of his face. She, in the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face.

We were the only guests to leave then, others likely shelled up in their rooms as if a disturbed killer was on the loose. Local authorities had since shown up, their vehicles queued outside the entrance. I wondered how much of what happened would be reported on once they understood who was involved.

The ryokan offered us a full refund having been professionally mortified at what happened. The money is not an issue and even though I do not want or need it, I take it. She was curled into my side as all this happened, more coherent than before but no less removed from the shock, only trying to convince me she was. Her togetherness was see-through to me then. I admired her, deeply, for trying.

I remember the first time I had witnessed a murder.

They apologized to the point where I had grown frustrated, being that again, I did not look upon the events as a tragedy. I left her to do the talking because she sounded more believable than I had. She assured them that in no way did she feel the inn was responsible and that provided nothing happened, it would have been a beautiful ceremony. Again, she had said all of this from my side. My heart thumping, metrically, counting all the times she blinked away slow-forming tears. Her eyes were foggy, an almost ethereal red halo from irritation. She was so good at pretending.

I had still felt dispassionate about what had happened but I could not negotiate how I felt towards her then. Something like concern that I had inadvertently brought her into this— _when, what, my one kill would be less traumatic than their three?_

Which reminds me: I still do not know who the priest was but I know a plan when I see one. That was painstakingly thought out, that was far from chance.

On the train, our ride back to Hanamura, she continued to take refuge on me with her head weakly on my shoulder. She was breathing softly and evenly, lulled to sleep by the whiplash of color streaming by the window, by the heat I know I give off. She felt safe enough, comfort enough, to fall asleep then and I turned my head and pressed my lips to her forehead.

Oni silently judged me for it, again, his flagrant repulsion like another commuter without a sense of personal space. He hated my response, my actions. However remote and small it was in me then, the shift my feelings towards her had taken, was the equivalent of an earthquake to him. He had hardly bat an eye when it was just inconsequential matters of the flesh, the slave to my emotions that I am. He saw the potential then in that moment for what desire was transforming into, for what it could do to me.

I still pray for objectivity, if anything, more so. 

The train stopped at Hanamura and I watched her reanimation. First, her surprise that she had fallen asleep, then her surprise that she had slept the entire way back. I picked up both of our bags with the understanding that she would follow me home without either of us having to say so.

We got back to my bare apartment. I set our things down in a neat pile and my bag clattered about the hardwood— Oni, my bow, the cleats, the sea eagle fletched feathers— all my lies jumbled from traveling, held together by canvas. The golden hour set upon us then, everything looked painted in its brilliance. I know she was admiring the view all over with the halos still lightly around her eyes. I reminded myself to invest in drapes and sat on the bed, unwilling to face Shimada Castle just yet.

She, with a very soft sigh, sat around me. In my lap.

And because of this, time moved very slowly.

Is it reasonable to be sad? Is it reasonable not to be?

My arms were not meant to hold her but I did in spite of knowing that. I thought she would somehow be able to feel what I had done which was irrational at best but in my mind then regardless. 

The way she looked at me in the dying light of day had stolen my voice. Inside my head, my thoughts were loud. She stared me in the eyes, wanting to see what my reaction was. I had made this uncertainty in her the very first night we met, repairing it meant slow blinking— meant not looking away. She wanted to watch my entire thought process. I had been so remote, so undecided.

She wanted to know what she was up against.

She pulled my shirt collar from underneath the sweater I had since unzipped, a weak fistful of the fabric. I thought she was going to kiss me. Her nose brushed over my jaw, her cheek eventually pressed over mine, lips angled to my ear.

God. It was like being reborn. I wanted her before but I needed her then.

She spoke low and sure, the words themselves scraping my skin, "Now is a good time, don't you think?"

Genji, I had never wanted someone so badly.

My thoughts were not with you and the assassinations from before had already reduced into a great nothingness. Selfishly, I allowed her to kiss me, to remove all the clothes I wore without protest. Greedily, I did the same back to her, pulling her body on top of me. All that we could have had, we had then. In sickening excess.

Where does the blade in my chest go when she presses up against me?

She fucked me without knowing to what degree I have been broken. She is gold filling my veins, my wounds, repairing me and making me new. She makes me think I am someone else.

We fell asleep together but somewhere in the night she woke up. I do not sleep as heavy as I used to. She was otherworldly in the moonlight, from our assault by the prolific sky, but it goes unmentioned because her eyes are full of grief and she latches onto my chest as if we are about to be separated. Lost at sea.

She would not explain to me why she was crying, she only does and I let her. I tell myself I know why only because I want to believe I know, only because it makes me feel like I understand her but I know it is not simple. I had known it was not about the wedding, I had known because we could have talked about it but she said nothing, accepting my palms on the sides of her face, accepting that I would not meddle.

She used me as a pillow and blanket for the rest of the night. She wanted to feel me surround her and I am just as desperate for the closeness.

She stirred again in the morning once the sun climbed up over the buildings in the east. Our movements were one from how we had become knotted together. Neither of us had mentioned the night. I do not mention, cannot mention for having to explain, that it was the first time in a long time I had woke up without a headache. 

There are no words that can say it the way it should be said, there is still too much of myself I cannot show.

She tells me, voice cracking with sleep, stretching, that her parents would have disowned her for getting tattoos, that they are the mark of gangsters and thugs. (Not me, I am still the honest businessman.) She pulls the hair out of my face to get a better look at me. I care little because I get to look into her eyes and her touch has never burned me.

This is her way of complimenting me.

Her parents would like me, apparently. Even though her father would not appreciate my haircut, her mother would still consider me handsome. She says all this with confidence and appreciation and I am thankful for the first time in a long time that my parents gave me something lasting besides their legacy.

We almost left the topic but she circled back, saying something like, they would like me up until they saw my tattoos. She does not mean any harm but I panic internally. She has invited the fear back. If she saw me for what I was and what I have done, for what I must do, she would disown me as well.

I think to the night before when we had fallen asleep after the tea, I feel the warmth of it in my throat but now it is vile because it is the taste of everything I will not say.


	8. Purpose

08/目的

 

He showed up without calling or warning me first. I have only myself to hold responsible for his disruption, negligent as I was for giving my address out before. I had gone from weeks of voluntary isolation up north in Hokkaido only to return  _here_  and spoil complete anonymity within hours. Mistakes are clockwork in how they chose to haunt you, for how they refuse to die. 

Hanamura is full of mistakes.

Between his knocking on door that I had so diligently kept locked, part gentle paranoia and part knowing better than to trust my neighbors, had he made a callow remark about hearing moaning from down the hallway as he approached. Irritatingly enough, this was before he had attempted a formal greeting or anything else. This comment was his careless entrance into a moment that existed without him, happily. I considered moving if only to reclaim our much-needed privacy, discretion for what had occupied us so completely as he had shown up.

Fate was amused by all of this while Oni, untouched since our return, gave no hint or change in expression. He was tacit company for my bow, both unpacked and forgotten. Momentarily.

(Oni would never tolerate being completely abandoned.)

I do not mean for these expressions to be so coarse— the meanings are new to me and still being revealed— but when she and I are together, I do not have to think. I am involuntary movements, anterior to reason. I am not who I have been. I am simultaneous ignorance and bliss in the same body, with my wounds of gold and meteoric worries. 

I become new. She allows it.

But then he knocks. The weight of the world comes back to me sharply and I have to accept that I am not as I thought I was. I remember too much too fast like  _the person_  I am supposed to be when I talk to him. Her touch, what I have been endlessly gratified to wake up to lately, feels far away then. Out of necessity we stop, unable to pretend we are not there. We paused at the sound of his voice before I stumbled into alertness. I, an irritated arch of the spine and head hanging on my neck. 

Damn. 

It is worth mentioning that his appearance had occurred a few days after our return from Hakone. Days spent together, charitably cleansed by her affection, pleasantly terrified by the feelings that swelled. This was after he had witnessed the return of the Elder, after they had every member pledge to find out about the contract killer that “spoiled” the wedding. He had mutely wondered why he had found out from the clan, and not me, that the Elder was without so much as a scratch (physically) when we had both so broadly understood the terms of our arrangement.

I am the one with reason, with money. It helps on top of this that he still remembers me as I was then, when I had license to claim the head of every table I sat at. He still thinks of me as the person that used to wear the clan’s symbols with the same practiced veneer that Father had mastered. He is just there, here, to feel significant and realize whatever part of him hungers so intensely for purpose, the world being random and cruel and too full of noise. I know that he wants to help me for the wrong reasons, that his purpose could be found elsewhere, but I am the last person who should judge anyone’s motive. He is eager to make his mark by whatever means necessary and he sees that he can do this through me.

I suppose.

There is no mistaking  _that_  about him, his willingness to be someone. He comes from nothing, born into his debt of misfortune and inherent dissatisfaction. He is driven to act, even if the actions themselves are convoluted through me and misdirected. We all get lost and deviate from our intended paths eventually, do we not? Perhaps I accept his aid because I believe I am helping him find himself— because I could not help you.

I ushered him out into the hall, remembering what she had said the first time he had come by and not willing to have the conversation I anticipated in front of her. The metaphors were tiring. She had hidden herself completely with the blanket so for the fraction of a moment where the door was open, her identity would be safe. It was easier for the both of us to not explain what had happened, for me not to tell him that his grand mistake of bringing her to our meet-up had been the best thing that had happened to me recently. I must resist encouraging disorder when enough of it finds me as it is.

Still, putting it in words has me sheepish. Every time I write about her I pull the pen away from the page in defeat and re-read the words until they are nothing but lines and strokes. When are words ever truthful or adequate?

He was nothing if not partial sentences, he was thrown that I was so clearly in the middle of something when I had never “struck him as the type” to do such a thing. I was close to begging him to switch the subject, to tell me what he had to and leave. Impatience, not embarrassment; my mind was still with her. He wanted to be juvenile and ask about her, questions I will not write because they insult and degrade. I told him I would pay him one hundred thousand yen to come back in an hour when we were decent. He laughed but I was serious; the ache to be apart— especially at a time so critical— was the only sincere feeling left in me.

He was brief then, the aspect of money settling in his brain with the flash of greed in his eyes. He told me about some fireworks festival that he had heard one of the elders planning on taking his grandson to that night. That he had only shown up because it was urgent and he was in the area. I gave him a look and with all the accuracy of a mind-reader, he quickly affirmed that the grandson was old enough that “if anything bad were to happen” that he would know how to get himself to safety. He followed up by informing me that there would likely be a great number of bodyguards in tow, that the wedding had pushed everyone into premature emotional collapse and I should take extra precautions.

He had a chance to ask me about why I had not been able to make the kill but he did not take it. We let it go unspoken and instead I push the conversation. I asked him why they planned hanabi just out of season. Fireworks are observed in the summer and it is no secret that autumn had rolled in early with the nights getting colder. He told me that question was better directed to Hanamura and not him before apologizing for the look I gave him in response.

I told him to give me a moment, that I would compensate for the information but I needed to get my wallet. But I go back into the room and she is right there, without a thing covering her except for a look of self-belief and want, for me. She is divine.

She pined me to the flat of the door once I had hastily shut it, only slowly and soundlessly. I tell her with a murmur that I am not quite finished yet but her unabridged enthusiasm has stirred me, deeply resonated within me. She feels my hardness with the soft of her palm, her soft gaze, her soft lips at my throat. She gives me gentle bites. I feel my knees weak. With mercy or without, I am undecided when she stops.

She hands me my wallet.

I mumble a thank you, before taking out the refund for the ryokan from the folded black envelope it was given to us in. She shuffled away from the door and I slip him the cash through the small opening. He smiled widely at me after counting the banknotes, which I assume is him trying to stall, still outwardly curious who I have with me. I tell him there will be extra if he meets me outside the building at 7, that I have a task for him.

I remember specifically hoping that he would not say the line again. In return, he says it and goes off down the hallway. Nice doing business with you.

I lock the door. I do this casually as if I have not decided to kill again later. I bring her back to the bed without the weight of taking a life on me.

We resume our previous actions then. 

I feel how broken I have been; this useless, fractured ribcage of porcelain that has been trying to mend without glue. I wait for rebirth as she straddles me, as she looks down at me, effortlessly, with her hands on the top of my thighs behind her for support. We are not gentle with each other.

I want to be different for her. I think that I can be.

Genji, I have not forgotten about you. Is it selfish to want to be happy after what I have done to you? Is it selfish to want to live? Rereading passages of this strange, chronological document of grief has made me understand that once I show you that I am sorry, I will lack purpose. 

Can she be my purpose? Can she be mine? I will be hers too. If she wants me, I submit myself completely.

Through all of this, Oni has been silent. Still. I have hardly felt his presence aside from the dull, thumping in the splinter of my consciousness that he has not let go of. He watches now, everything, the impassive voyeur he is, as if I am supposed to be inspired— as if he is trying to convey that his unresponsive nature is superiority. He wants me to consider the ruin I will become if she were to leave and never come back. I stray from the concern of separation each time I see her eyes roll back and feel her shiver from under the tips of my fingers.

He thinks I need him more than ever but I am beginning to doubt that I need him at all.


	9. Fireworks

09/花火

 

We were parallel and spent. The sheets were cool and dampened underneath us, confirmation along the length of my spine that I had not imagined the previous hours. It is hard for me to remember, in moments so small and undisturbed, how I have thrown away the chance at an honest life.

I looked towards her with my head cradled by the pillow. She had been staring up at the ceiling. I watched with submissive fascination as a small pearl of sweat slid down her neck in the shallow breaths she was taking, her chest blooming at each inhale. She felt the weight of my stare and turned into it, lips deliberately stretching into a grin in having to decide what my expression had meant— keeping it still, like a secret. 

There are many secrets between us.

She is left to interpret what is on my mind because I have not yet found my voice and so cannot explain; Hokkaido is still with me in this regard. I feel strange in my inability to speak. The Young Master was understood implicitly, he could be quiet and the direction of his gaze was enough to communicate all that was necessary. I find myself now as the sika deer by the shore, coming and going, moving silently as a ghost. 

So, I am thankful, gracious even— but the observer no less. These hands— my hands— rough and unfit for what they reach out to, still occasionally tremble. I am entrusted with something so delicate that I am still without belief. 

Another life. Hers. I have been blindly trusted with it. 

Evening had crept overhead by then and the darkening sky was soon to be full of gunpowder. I imagined the explosive sound and unintentionally allowed myself the memory of the warehouse. Dead, cold crowbar in my hands, prying the wooden crate of firearms open, misguided interest slipping fast into dread, the thick stench of blood, ending in an unrealistic surreal splatter of bodies from weapons I had never been trained to use. 

The single-minded plan I had obsessed over, seeking to loosen myself from reality, obsessing for thirteen solid days before sending myself into isolation in the weeks afterwards. The entire time, I had avoided calling it what it was. 

Murder. 

The word evokes a taste.

_Yes murder. Of course murder._

I choke, even now, on the broken awareness that I am culpable for the deaths of so many yet lay beside someone as fragile as they had been. _So, what makes her different?_ A voice in my ear forces a jolt through my insides. And then I think, disgustingly, to myself, what is it that stops me from running my hands over her, stopping at her neck, and squeezing the life out?

My inhalations change, abrupt and jagged, with realization twisting the dagger through my ribs. Oni has been silent since we returned because he hibernates within me, in the marrow of my _fucking_ bones. He wakes to torment me, saying  _he and I_ are more alike than I am with _her_. He wakes and reminds me that the constant ache in my forehead is the skin splitting from his phantom horns. My awareness is his. She too, his…

I think, furiously, to sate Oni’s sudden overwhelming hunger, that he can claim the lives of each patriarch but not hers. I swear to serve him the pitiful souls of the Elders on the finest Imari porcelain. I make my promise in iron red and cobalt blue.

 _We kill tonight._ Yes. _My way._ I understand.

Her concern for me sharpens and manages to worsen the ache. I hold both hands to my temples and she rolls to her side to study me. I know she notices everything yet comments on little. It is both a relief and an irritation.

I wonder what she makes of my inconsistencies.

I am okay, then, I am not okay.

She decides once I appear to have begun to unravel that I am safe to touch. Her hand moves up the side of my arm, over the dragon coiled protectively over the skin, and holds my still-taut bicep in reassurance. Bodily, I must have accepted her gesture as I remembered with it how thinly time had stretched itself and how badly I needed to focus. Alone in my mind once again, I allowed her presence to become my anchor, and breathed deeply until I had mirrored her own calm.

I manage a thank you in a voice that sounds dry and rough and alien to me. She accepts it with a kiss to my shoulder, then to my collar, my throat, and finally my chin. The trail stops at my teeth.

She explains that she will listen if I want to talk. I do not doubt that she would but I feel myself reach up to hold her face with a hand, beckoning her lips with mine. We kiss instead and almost lose the rest of the evening.

How could I ever explain? 

She excuses herself to the bathroom, I feel along the floor for my phone in her absence. I see then that it is almost time to leave the shelter of my apartment. Recalling what I would do later, that word again— murder, was a sudden displacement as if I had been shoved off the futon. I got to my feet, avoiding the window or else confront the castle I hated so much, and pulled a hand over my scalp.

Breath hitched in my throat again, inexcusably. I knew she had noticed once she reemerged, shutting the door soundlessly behind her.

She wound herself around me, her chest at my back. A sigh crossed her lips, asking, “What are you thinking about?”

I am weak to the tone in her voice and turn my head to the side, catching what I can of her profile from over my shoulder. She unspools a weak smile and I have the nerve to forget, even for a moment, that I am the same being that took your life. 

I tell her I am thinking of fireworks, my voice croaking in the partial lie. I was thinking mostly about the patriarch’s face that I would be hunting for in the crowded streets. His graying hair, the creases around his malevolent eyes— thinking, wondering, if he would also look at me with reverence, just as the others had in their last moments. 

But, I bring up fireworks and she uncovers as I speak that there will be a celebration. She only has to widen her eyes and further turn the corners of her lips.

Genji, how is it that you managed to inherit all the charisma when I was born first?

My voice stammers as I invite her.

She will come with me again because I lack restraint but it is somehow less severe because of her excitement. I am somehow sure that I can balance both things and tune out the growling, the slow piercing of horns through my brow. 

We both dress. She faster than I, I slower than her because she knows I cannot keep my eyes away from her once I have had her all to myself for days.

She steps into the bathroom to find a comb and I take my opportunity to meet _him_ outside. I explain to her that I will go down and check the temperature, she looks for me in the mirror as she agrees.

I shrug the canvas bag over my shoulder and sneak it downstairs. I see him, leaned against the brick of the building, immersed with something or other on the wide screen of his cell phone. I approach, boots scraping the pavement, and he looks towards me with an obtuse grin, as if we are meeting under different circumstances. 

I handed him the bag and told him to hang onto it until I needed it. He opened his mouth to ask me something before I rushed to clarify that my last rule that he was not to ask me anything more. He flared his nostrils but remembered the sum of money I had handed over and agreed, taking off in the direction of the rising sounds of laughter and music.

I return to the apartment to collect her and a jacket. The sky is clear but it is obvious that we have lost the warmth of the past season.

We wander the streets that I have since fallen out of love with. With her on my arm, I am able to suffer through it— even approach a strangled pleasure. There is a lot to see, to become preoccupied with as we walk through gauntlets of street vendors; children tugged excitedly at their parent’s arms, couples hold hands shyly. We lean into each other as we speak so to be heard through the excitement and I have the nerve once again to forget about everything.

But, at the height of it all, Oni peaks an eye open.

 _Where is he?_  

I must focus. I know that I could find him if I tried and Oni knows I had not been trying.

I say less but she adjusts and talks slower with longer pauses. She is content to be as quiet as I am.

Through all the people, finding him is easy; I could do it without sight. All it takes for me is the will to. We cross a number of blocks until I pick up what I assume to be his presence. We carry on in the direction and I know I have him cornered. There is a knot in my stomach, an instinctual discomfort, which grows the closer I get to him. I feel it snap and know I have directly passed his line of sight.

He does not see me, the way I look now. He would not know to look for the Young Master, anyway.

Oni wakes to take note of where he stands before I lead her away. We wander into the clearing of a small park, far enough removed from my target that I can keep her and him as two separate thoughts. We found a spot to occupy, mutually agreeing it was as good as anywhere else before I shrugged my jacket off and stretched it over the grass. She went to sit and realized that I had stood still.

I told her then I would be right back and that I needed to find a restroom.

I became the subject of a stare that made me believe she could see into my head until her expression became one of understanding. She assured me she would stay put and offered me good luck, the lines would be long considering the turn out.

I slipped through the crowd, walking until I was out of her sightlines before speeding up. Fishing for my phone in the pocket of my jeans, I sent him a message to locate him. He sent me a text almost as soon as I asked and I had to wonder if he had been waiting with the phone in his hand.

I tracked him down, a block over, leaning by an okonomiyaki stand near a rowdy group of people, all drinking beer out of shiny silver cans. The smell of alcohol was heavy in the air as it was, I wondered if he had been drinking with them but did not dwell on it. He handed me everything I would need without a word, but gestured that his lips were sealed.

Idiot.

I told him that I would bring my bag back once everything had been taken care of. He was to bring it back to my apartment later, to leave it behind the building so I could collect it.

I retrace my steps to where Oni and I had placed the Elder, bag slung awkwardly over my shoulder and knocking into people without apology. 

_Not here._

I know. I thought, in repetition, answering the guttural voice. His disappointment was clear but I was not worried. We were both aware; my understanding being his, the Elder had since fled.

_Where?_

I focus, scanning around where he had stood, waiting for the feeling to come back to me. It was then when I noticed how my informant had not been wrong— the crowd shuffled just enough and I caught sight of what must have been the patriarch’s grandson in the company of a handful of men in tailored suits. I exhaled my relief knowing that this would work precisely in my favor, having the two separated.

I feel the knot in my stomach snap and Oni purr deeply. The Elder’s voice, suddenly sharp, was right beside me before he accidentally bumped into my side, rattling my bag in his passing. He pressed his phone tightly to his ear, appearing to be set on finding a quiet place to have his conversation.

I felt myself darken, becoming lost in my head. Everything was murky like waking up in the night after drinking heavily. Oni chased after him on my behalf. 

The Elder shook himself free from the festival limits and turned down another side street. His voice, thrown from the buildings he scurried between, gave the distinct impression of him halting. He became one continuous string of sound, as his conversation deepened.

Oni had fully risen from my bones by then.

We set the canvas bag down at the mouth of the side street before the bow and mask were fished out. 

A single arrow. That was all that was necessary.

A single, well-placed arrow.

Silently, expertly, we crept closer than we needed.

Oni, depraved, wanted to smell the life first— to be close for a blood-splatter just as I had been drawn to the sea at the end of the earth and wanted to feel the spitting waves. I identified his hunger, I allowed his desires to entwine with my own until there was no separating what he wanted from what I wanted.

The Elder had not yet turned around when he hung up the call, mid-sentence, and reached into his obi to produce a sidearm. He commanded me, without looking, to put the weapon down. How he knew I was armed or that anyone was there in the first place was admittedly remarkable.

But, Oni and I refused.

Where was my option to put the weapon down the night they made me go after you?

Under the mask I became frenzied. Oni was perilously excited, excited in all the wrong ways at the aspect of the false sense of protection the Elder had. 

_Shoot. Now._

My body mechanical, arm solid and form precise, shuttered into movement. I felt the world swing into slow motion as the arrow released. I saw the eagles scraping the sea and breaking the glassy surface of the water, glinting like fragments of a shattered mirror.

The sound the Elder made was full and round as the arrow pierced his chest, entering from his back and becoming fully lodged in his torso. He dropped his weapon in surprise before staggering to face me.

He recognized the bow.

I hated how his face twisted as he placed it. I hated even more recalling him serving me sake the night I had taken your life; I had drank enough then to pass out, hoping to not wake up. I felt the throb in my head and Oni leaching the memory from me to fuel his voracious appetite for destruction.

There was fear in the Elder’s eyes. He knew what I had come for in that moment. He asked if it was the Young Master, without sounding sure that it had been impossible.

But Oni shook my head for me. I was not Hanzo then.

_Old man, you should be so lucky._

Then he said a name I had not recognized. Oni knew and flashed an all-pervading, toothy sneer.

The Elder had been looking past me.

I tore away from Oni just long enough to see through the slits in the mask what he had been looking at.

His grandson stood behind me, furiously blinking but unable to advance.

Oni stared at him though me with dispassion. _Child, your grandfather was a terrible, disgusting, filthy person. He lived with desire to meet me. He earned this._

The grandson did not cry or scream, only stared. Shock without a specific path, taking favorable form in paralysis. He went as pale as the moon, but made no sound.

Oni was disappointed that it had not been theatrical, that there was no shriek or terrible sob, yet he settled by making a humiliating example out of him.

 _You should be like this child._ His voice was sticky. Putrid, devoid of feeling. _Your sentimentality gets you nowhere. You will forever feel this blade in your chest. You will never be free of your guilt._

Oni roared and his contorted hand twisted the knife lodged in my ribs.

_This is a lesson. Learn from it._


	10. Neck

10/首 

 

I was all too conscious in the few, high-octane seconds where I stood before the child and felt fear well up in me faster than I could contain it. Besides Oni grating the knife against my ribs, the gesture serving more as an act of humiliation and forcing my submission than stimulation of any real pain, I was afraid. The emotions I feel, fear especially, only serve to enrage him.

The child’s wide eyes held me, unfocused and slipping over the mask, no indication of my expression behind the painted wood and hard carved lines but he searched as if it were possible. I do not have to know him to understand that a day will come where he outgrows his childhood though he will never outgrow the consequences of this night and what has taken place here. He will endlessly return— every pause in conversation, every dark room he lays in, all invaded by the reflection of this— as if I have tethered his consciousness to the ground. I know all too well what it feels like to have a single minute stretch and dip into every waking moment, obsessing over what I cannot change.

I have done to him what I have done to myself.

Your death takes up the front of my brain and can settle over me at any moment. I am lucky to stray away from it when I can but I am somehow much more terrible for trying to make it so. The moments where I can forget are not of peace, but of neglect. When I return, it is only to greater guilt.

You are a wound I will never recover from. I know this. I do not seek to fix or reverse. It is impossible. I want complete, vain acknowledgement, I want grave recognition towards my actions, as late as it is. I am wrong to think you will ever know what I have done to the people who ordered your death, but I am wrong for having taken your life to begin with.

I have all that is left of my life to atone quietly, which means  _ this _ must come first. The arrow tonight has brought me closer to the apology I want to make.

This, all of it, will mean something. 

My consciousness fades here, reduces and blurs until I am left with an incomplete awareness. I have to strain to recall what it is that happened because of how much Oni and I began to resist each other. 

I can see, if only partially, the patriarch’s slow sinking down onto his knees. In his stagger to face me, he had also made some small attempt to hide the arrow from the child’s eyes, sticking out of his back and concealed from all of us. The moment was a sieve for tenderness, the old man was choking and trying to form words and sounds but each loose exhale and shiver only quickened his eventual death. Oni, gnashing teeth, smiled at this. He is so intimately familiar with the stench of the dying and the dead. 

He made me bite through the skin of my lip. He made sure I tasted my own blood, heavy copper of it like a paperweight. The sour sharpness made me want to wretch— that and his forced recognition.

I am still a person with the inconsistent, twin heartbeats of sad sighing dragons. I am eyes that wish to shut but remain unblinking.

I backed down the alley, step by pitiful step, keeping my mask angled towards the sight. Oni dared me to look away; I for once felt the weight of his threats and kept as level as I could. As the elder’s eyes began to glaze, I watched the child bend stiffly towards him. It was as if the boy had been forced into a position he did not want to assume naturally.

Though he looked towards the dying man, he spoke towards me.

“誰ですか?”

His voice was jarring, creased in every emotion but panic. Facing death and bitter at the lingering bad taste it brought, still without tears or trying to bargain for the life as it visibly left in a fight for breath. Stubborn. Refusal. Demanding that I answer him, that I give him a reason.

_ Why? _

Genji, he was like you.

I had blood seeping into my mouth still, I felt it pool about my tongue. I had every reason to feel powerful. But I felt nothing, robbed of the moment. I anticipated the same kind of peace I had found in the warehouse. I would have welcomed that, even a total self-disgust which is still a type of solitude. But there was nothing.

So I turned then, allowing my forceful steps to carry me well away from the alley. I was blessedly aware as I passed my bag, holding my quiver and the rest of the sea eagle fletched arrows, that I could not leave it at the mouth of the passage where I had dropped it. Slinging it over my shoulder, I took it with me and crossed a number of streets before shrugging it off. 

The canvas edges flopped open for me, folded over with anticipation.

My role was over but it felt raw and incomplete.

I slid the mask off. I had no desire to prolong putting it away but I did, irritatingly captivated by the unrestrained look of victory splashed so obviously over his face. Oni studied my bloodied mouth in return for my observation, admiring the handiwork of his bite. He wanted to see me speak and watch the raw bowing of my lips to form words, provoking the punctures. He baited me.

_ She will leave you. Explain to me what happens then. _

I am not prepared to think about her. She exists somewhere else, another time.

He gives me a voice of false assurance that he will look the other way for how badly I have neglected his wants. He tells me I could have already taken them all out instead of just one, that I have slowed myself, that I am burdened. I take his criticisms, I do not reject them but I do not act on them.

I hold the mask higher into the moonlight, further fixed by a sad pale blue that has since washed over the streets. I hold it until it is nearly just under my chin. I feel the blood I have been refusing to swallow meeting the inside of my bitten lip. I let some spill onto his face. It is my need for a show of open resistance. 

Here is the blood that you wanted so desperately.

He is thrilled, a dangerous bliss in either the action or the intention behind it. Oni’s gratification has me see how short-lived our understandings of each other are, how I stray further from him between the flares of violence. I thought I was like him.

I tell myself I do not need him as I have told myself before.

I put the mask back inside the bag along with my bow, defeat shuddering through each exhale I take. I do not know how but only in the crudest way that I have lost.

I move then to return to the street from before with my informant. I discard my bag where I had explained that I would, unwilling to carry the weapon with me any further. I am comfortable to leave it behind with the crowds that have become compact and competitive, too busy looking up to notice the ground. I am comfortable to not have to carry his face with me, slung over my shoulder, as I return to her.

She must never find out.

But I hear Oni laugh.  _ She will. _

I pretend I cannot hear his voice in my ear.

I tell myself as I move that the child had nothing save for Oni’s face but I can only tell myself this for so long without exhausting the truth. He has my name. My real name. I shudder now to think of what may come of it but a shudder is a useless gesture and changes nothing. He has my name.

The Elder was dead or in the final stages of his drawn out end when I eventually found her. Seeing her was confirmation that I had not completely left my mind. Not yet.

She was perched in the same place I had last saw her and made no comment on how long I was gone. I wonder now if it had been too dark then to examine my lip, to see the red stain of blood. She soundlessly rose to her full height to reclaim the place at my side that I will always welcome her to. The warmth of summer is with us no longer but I am impervious to the drop in temperature. 

We watched the night fill, dusted and shocked with the burning and bursting of acid greens and golds. She rests her face on my shoulder, one arm around my back and palm pressed reassuringly against me. I wanted it to feel good.

The sounds of the fireworks were loud enough to drown out the eventual screaming of the person who had ultimately found the body and the child, who I imagined would have remanded grudgingly silent even then.

The end of the festival brings applause but even that fades into confusion and whispers as everyone shuffles and files about. No one wants to believe what they hear and they make excuses it, saying it must be a rumor started by teenagers or juvenile delinquents to scare the younger crowd that had swarmed. Most maintain that nothing like  _ that  _ could happen here. She listens faithfully to a couple in front of us as we head back in the direction of my apartment. She grips onto my arm with more intention as she hears they found an old man dead and his grandson alive who had presumably witnessed the whole thing. I feel pins and needles in my body but press on as if I do not hear them say so, as if I do not feel her limbs have become heavy and burdensome to both her and I as we walk. I feel as if I have to move for her.

I have assumed the weight of one more life. It pounds and whispers and darkens my blood. Oni adjusts for me, helps me accept it, shuffle it in with the others that I am not allowed to forget, and manages the worst of the guilt. Although he would like to see me destroyed by my actions, I am useless to him broken. He wants to motivate with pain, but never break me; he wants to fill me with ache only until the moment I stop responding to it. The difference between bending and breaking is control and I am beginning to lose track of who has just that.

I know that Oni is ravenous and that I have promised him more. The word  _ monster _ comes to mind. Oni devours that too. He leaves me without a voice. A useless shudder breaks through me once again.

I cannot fall asleep without numbing myself with Sake first. I know it before I come back to the apartment.

She had latched onto my arm until we were back behind the locked door of my studio. Stretching and sighing, she strayed and became occupied with the view, leaning upon the windowsill. The fireworks have passed and the sky reflects on its emptiness. The stars are few but vivid.

Hanamura still sings to her, limning her with innocence. I know better, that it declines its own weak narrative of decency and morality. It was good once, but so was I.

I moved to a cupboard to collect a bottle of sake and single shot glass. I have managed to round these up in the days since returning from Hakone and have kept them for an urgent situation. She watches me gather my supplies, set them out on the small counter, and then take my first shot. I reach for the bottle again to pour another. One is not nearly enough. She places her hand on it before I can get to it. I did not think to ask her to join me and so curse myself internally for my display of rudeness and impatience. I gesture that she take it and she gives me a gentle look of comprehension that softens the hardness of her gaze.

Something is bothering her.

She tosses the shot back, there is no slow savoring. Her throat is taut and inviting. Thin-skinned, pounding jugular.

Oni’s greatest desire has slowly become to see hands around her neck— my hands. He believes it is his natural right to, deft entitlement to kill and consume anything that dares to move too close to me. She moves too closely. I stare at my hands in disbelief for what he makes me consider doing, for what he has me see and feel as I look to her. The hands I turn over in examination still bare resemblance to a human but I know that this is less so each day that passes. 

_ You just fucking wait.  _ He laughed, his sound and presence ripping through me like a fire in a field. All random agony, searing my mind and my thoughts without concern.  _ You do not get to keep the life, idle and listless like a bird in a cage. You take it. _

She gently wipes her mouth. The movement is slow and her eyes concede, full of calculation just like the first drink we shared. She is blessedly the same under the worry, inviolable, the same worry that lifts when she sets the cup back down on the counter.

I am helpless to how I feel.

I told her with the last of my sober senses she should leave. I try to persuade her that I feel a sickness in me and I would not be offended if she did not stay with me through it, that she is welcome back later. I do not dare tell her it is because I feel my blood swimming with homicidal possibility but perhaps I should have. She considers going, maybe, but decides against it. Instead, she wants to pour another shot.

She does not drink alone, I stand at the counter next to her and follow her lead. I suppose that is what greed is: an initially pleasurable start, doomed to an excruciating end.

All actions motivated in greed are shadowed with such realism.

We drink more.

She decides for me that we are finished with standing and swaying, the drink liquefying and testing our balance. She goes to the futon with cunning purpose in each nimble step and I follow her with the few mouthfuls of sake left swishing around the bottle. She sits at the end before lowering herself to her back, her eyes blink indolently. A flicker of something breaks over her for a moment before she steels herself, she would rather I not notice it. I cannot help but see it. It is pacified dread, but dread all the same.

I remember her reaction to the news, her cleverly hid disbelief. I wonder if that is what I see.

The futon cushions my knees. We take turns pressing the glass to our lips and share the last holy sips. It is past midnight then and I feel the opacity of alcohol surge within my brain, all the innate tenderness of a lead pipe.

I become numb. Numb is preferred.

I feel Oni slip from me just long enough to consider it safe, us safe. I deem that we are afforded our moment of privacy by how the piercing horns cease to exist. Again the world loses its edges in something close to sympathy— pity. I assume that we have bored him with our nonsensical feelings and looks, that we have lost his interest. Exhaustion and sake have made the world soft once more and I decide that her delicate, fragile life is safe with me.

But it is never safe to share a bed with a monster.

She undresses as I set the empty glass bottle on the floor in razor-sharp erotic telepathy of the moment. She is looking for me to fuck her. I should have more restraint but I have nothing but reflex. I feel her kiss my neck with increasing want. The sake burns away at us like this and we are helpless to it. I should welcome it but I feel the yearning and straining of Oni become sharp and clear, prowling in my veins, wanting out from within me. 

I am hyperconscious. I am too late to stop him, too late to try.

He smiles that bloodied, wild, carved smile for me. He lifts his arms for me as she guides the hem of my shirt over my head. He crows with satisfaction as she kisses down my chest, his hand finding the soft curve of her face, feeling the warmth of her cheek.

He is tender with her. Cruel and false. She does not deserve to be played with.

_ You just fucking wait. _ To her, to me. Unsaid.

He gets her underneath me and presses his hand to her throat. Sudden occult necessity, an extreme pitch of desire in our shared bones. Her eyes widen in recognition.

Thin-skinned, pounding jugular— Oni presses down.


End file.
